At Your Best – August 2018

August 13, 2018

Hello!

Working Mother magazine boldly states that “American women quit working because it’s so damn hard to be both a mother and an employee.”

This notion is supported by research from the Internet Monetary Fund which found that the U.S. is experiencing a drop in the percentage of women participating in the labor force due to a lack of policies that support working mothers.

Moreover, because women comprise almost 50 percent of the U.S. labor force and a third have children under the age of 18, it’s difficult for any organization to succeed unless working mothers are as well.

In this issue of At Your Best, we explore practical resources for organizations to develop effective maternity benefits and the latest research on how motherhood impacts female employees throughout the course of their careers.

Selecting Impactful Maternity Benefits

There is no shortage of ranking lists for “best companies” for working mothers, but some hold more weight than others. Fairygodboss, a website of company reviews for women by women, bases their rankings exclusively on women’s experiences while Working Mother magazine’s annual list considers both maternity benefits and post-maternity support for working mothers. Read more about what it takes for a company to be above-average for working moms.

Motherhood Deepens The Gender Pay Gap

Employees who exit the workforce for a year or more return to a salary that’s 7.3 percent less. This disproportionally impacts working mothers because they are more likely to experience career interruptions due to motherhood. Research from PayScale’s “The State of the Gender Pay Gap” report indicates that the penalties don’t stop there; as the length of women’s career increases the pay gap does as well. Read more on how workplace absence for motherhood costs women.

The Challenges of Being a Female Physician

Despite a radical shift in physician demographics, the overall structure of medical training has remained the same since the sixties – a time in which most residents were male with few
domestic duties. Today women account for more than a third of physicians, and the double bind they face – one between work and home – is causing a significant impact on their mental health and our medical system. Read more about the special challenges female physicians face.

Women Raised by Working Mothers Have Higher Paying Jobs

A third of Americans believe the ideal
environment for young children is one in which
the mother doesn’t work; however, research suggests that working has a profoundly positive influence on their children’s future. Women
raised by working mothers are more likely to
have successful careers with higher pay while men raised by working mothers are more likely to have egalitarian views of gender norms. Watch now >